Estoy Nueces

I reread the last entry and good thing! I was about to write the same thing all over again. No, I'm not repeating myself, it's my husband and his evil plan to awake from my dead sleep every damn day! Are we going to have to have a marriage with separate bedrooms? That doesn't sound as implausible as it did when I was a dreamy 16-year-old.

We went through a very similar aggravation Saturday morning with a very different end result, though. I'll back up for Friday night first.

On Friday night, after a hellish day at work, I joined the Austin journal writers at the cafe. Good Lord, do I LIVE in that place or what? I swear I'm more there every week now than I ever was when I worked there. Anyway, I met up with them and thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, the Michelob Amber, the fabulous spinach and artichoke dip they serve there, seeing Jette with a boy! (sorry, C, a very handsome man!), chatting with Devota, Cranky Amy, Feith, Charlie, Waterlily, Invincible Girl, Greg, and anyone else? I think that was the group this time.

Someone asked if I wasn't supposed to go to a going-away party at Hill's simultaneously with the journal writers. "Yes," I responded, "But not if they don't see me." It was going away for a girl I have had a long relationship with here in Austin. I was hired four years ago to help cover while she was out on maternity leave having a little boy. She and I worked together in that job and in the current job and now she is leaving for the DFW area. Sure, we've been co-workers for four years, but I've never quite understood or connected with her so we probably won't be keeping in touch after she is gone.

After the journal writers had disbanded, I did wander out to the patio and found the going-away party with her and her frequently-estranged husband, several of her friends I didn't know, one musician friend of hers that tries my patience, and one old friend from our old job and current job that I enjoy very much. So I sat and visited with him for the duration and let the guest of honor believe that I had just arrived from work.

Anyway, all that to say I had been out drinking for several hours, got home, exhuasted from a hard week and many beers, and I went to bed about midnight. Sweet Mark comes in from a gig at 3 a.m. and I groggily say hello. He comes to bed but complains about his lower back hurting. "Get a Naproxen in there on the shelf and go to sleep," I advise, mainly encouraging the 'go to sleep' part. He goes to the shelf, "I can't find it.... " It's right there. "I can't read it." Just take the pill and go to bed! He takes the pill, comes to bed, and says, "It is really painful on one side of my lower back, sort of like my kidney." Oh, great. "And I feel like I need to pee but I can't." So why didn't you say all that before? Let's go to the hospital.

We spent the next four hours in the South Austin Hospital with the nicest people, but with the same tendency to wake you up every ten minutes. They drew blood and ran tests and did a CT scan and, yes, Mark had a kidney stone. We learned a lot about kidney stones that morning. They are often caused by dehydration and therefore, have a "season"-- they occur more in the summer and more in the sunbelt states. And apparently, the painful part of "passing" a kidney stone is getting it from the kidney down the ureter into the bladder, not getting it through the penis like you probably think.

Anyway, Mark didn't have much pain after we left home, never hurt too badly or had the unbearable pain that many men do, and he's been fine every since. Chances are he passed it there at the hospital soon after the CT.

We got home Saturday morning and I got one more hour of sleep before spending the whole day working. I was a zombie through it all. Came home and crashed for a while, went out to see Aaron Watson at Wild Ride because I had promised I would. I was no good, though, and was too much of a zombie there, too, so I begged off and came home.

Sunday was a day of sleeping, taking it easy, staying home. I did cook some wonderful food and potted plants and cleaned the yard and did genealogy, so I wasn't lazy, just enjoying myself on my own schedule for a change.

Sigh. Monday rolled around too fast. I am desperate for a vacation. I ought to just declare when I'm taking off and go be brave and DO something, but I don't work well that way. My sister has a cruise that she won that we're supposed to go on, but it hasn't been firmed up. I would like to go off to the Hill Country or Big Bend for a few nights just to be AWAY, but I want Mark to go, too. And I need to set down the dates I want off on the holidays, too, just to be sure I get some time off. I'm at a high tension/stress stage where work is not as fun as I want it to be and it is very tough to get myself up there each day.

Thanks for reading this far. I need to self-edit. Way too much information before the crux of the story. When the headline is Man Has Kidney Stone, you don't need to know his shoe size.